Anne Tyler: Vinegar Girl

“My what?”

“Your performance at the Little People’s School. Your teaching abilities.”

“Oh,” Kate said. “ I don’t know.”

She was hoping this would qualify as an answer, but when Mrs. Darling went on gazing at her expectantly, she added, “I mean, I’m not really a teacher. I’m an assistant.”

“Yes?”

“I just assist.”

Mrs. Darling continued to gaze at her.

“But I guess I do okay at it,” Kate said finally.

“Yes,” Mrs. Darling said, “you do, for the most part.”

Kate tried not to look surprised.

“I would say, in fact, that the children seem quite taken with you,” Mrs. Darling said.

The words “for some mysterious reason” hung silently in the room.

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe their parents feel the same way.”

“Oh,” Kate said.

“This issue has come up before, Kate. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You and I have had some discussions about it. Some very serious discussions.”

“Right.”

“Just now it’s Mr. Crosby. Jameesha’s father.”

“What about him?” Kate asked.

“He spoke to you on Thursday, he says.” Mrs. Darling picked up the top sheet of paper and readjusted her glasses to consult it. “Thursday morning, when he brought Jameesha in to school. He told you he wanted to talk to you about Jameesha’s thumb sucking.”

“Finger sucking,” Kate corrected her. Jameesha had a habit of sucking her two middle fingers, with her pinkie and her index finger sticking up on either side like the sign language for “I love you.” Kate had seen that a few times before. Benny Mayo, last year, used to do that.

“Finger sucking; all right. He asked you to stop her whenever you caught her at it.”

“I remember.”

“And do you remember what you answered?”

“I said he shouldn’t worry about it.”

“Is that all?”

“I said she was bound to stop on her own, by and by.”

“You said…” And here Mrs. Darling read aloud from the sheet of paper. “You said, ‘Chances are she’ll stop soon enough, once her fingers grow so long that she pokes both her eyes out.’ ”

Kate laughed. She hadn’t realized she’d been so witty.

Mrs. Darling said, “How do you suppose that made Mr. Crosby feel?”

“How would I know how it made him feel?”

“Well, you might venture a guess,” Mrs. Darling said. “But I’ll just go ahead and tell you, why don’t I. It made him feel that you were being…” She read aloud again. “ ‘…flippant and disrespectful.’ ”

“Oh.”

Mrs. Darling set the sheet of paper down. “Someday,” she told Kate, “I can imagine your becoming a full-fledged teacher.”

“You can?”

Kate had never noticed that this place had an actual career path. Certainly there had been no evidence of it to date.

“I can see you in charge of a classroom, once you mature,” Mrs. Darling said. “But when I say ‘mature,’ Kate, I don’t mean just getting older.”

“Oh. No.”

“I mean that you would need to develop some social skills. Some tact, some restraint, some diplomacy.”

“Okay.”

“Do you even understand what I’m talking about?”

“Tact. Restraint. Diplomacy.”

Mrs. Darling studied her a moment. “Because otherwise,” she said, “I can’t quite picture your continuing in our little community, Kate. I’d like to picture it. I’d like to keep you on for the sake of your dear aunt, but you are walking on very thin ice here; I want you to know that.”

“Got it,” Kate said.

Mrs. Darling didn’t seem reassured, but after a pause she said, “Very well, Kate. Leave the door open when you go, please.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. D.,” Kate told her.

—

“I think I’ve been put on probation,” she told the Threes’ assistant. They were standing out on the playground together, supervising the seesaws so that no one got killed.

Natalie said, “Weren’t you already on probation?”

“Oh,” Kate said. “Maybe you’re right.”

“What’d you do this time?”

“I insulted a parent.”

Natalie grimaced. They all felt the same way about parents.

“It was this nutso control-freak dad,” Kate said, “who keeps trying to turn his kid into Little Miss Perfect.”

But just then Adam Barnes arrived with a couple of his Twos, and she dropped the subject. (She always tried to look like a nicer person than she really was when Adam was around.) “What’s up?” he asked them, and Natalie said, “Oh, not a whole lot,” while Kate just grinned at him foolishly and jammed her hands in her jeans pockets.

“Gregory here was hoping to go on a seesaw,” Adam said. “I told him maybe one of the big guys would let him take a turn.”

“Of course!” Natalie said. “Donny,” she called, “could you give Gregory a little turn on the seesaw?”

She wouldn’t do that for anyone but Adam. The children were supposed to be learning to wait — even the two-year-olds. Kate sent her a narrow-eyed stare, and Donny said, “But I just now got on!”

“Oh, then,” Adam broke in immediately. “That wouldn’t be fair, then. You don’t want to be unfair to Donny, do you, Gregory?”

Gregory seemed to feel that he did want to be unfair. His eyes filled with tears and his chin started wobbling.

“Or, I know what!” Natalie said, in a super-enthusiastic tone. “Gregory, you can ride with Donny! Donny can be a big boy and share his ride with you!”

Kate felt like upchucking. She nearly went so far as to pantomime sticking a finger down her throat, but she stopped herself. Luckily, Adam wasn’t looking in her direction. He was lifting Gregory onto the seesaw in front of Donny, who at least was tolerating the arrangement, and then he walked over to set a hand behind Jason at the other end to add some weight.

Adam was the school’s only male assistant, a lanky, kind-faced young English-major type with a tangle of dark hair and a curly beard. Mrs. Darling seemed to feel she’d been exceptionally daring to have hired him, although most of the other preschools had several men on their staffs by that time. She had first assigned him to the Fives, known also as the Pre-Ks because the children there, mostly boys, were old enough for kindergarten but were thought to need a further year of socialization. A man would provide discipline and structure, Mrs. D. felt. However, Adam had turned out to be such a mild man, so gentle and solicitous, that halfway through his first year he and Georgina had been switched. Now he happily tended two-year-olds, wiping noses and soothing random cases of homesickness, and before Quiet Rest Time every day his mumbly, slightly furry voice could be heard singing lullabies above the soporific strumming of his guitar. Unlike most men, he stood noticeably taller than Kate, and yet somehow in his presence she always felt too big and too gangling. She longed all at once to be softer, daintier, more ladylike, and she was embarrassed by her own gracelessness.

She wished she had had a mother. Well, she had had a mother, but she wished she’d had one who had taught her how to get along in the world better.

“I saw you walk past during Quiet Rest Time,” Adam called to her as he worked the seesaw. “Were you in trouble with Mrs. Darling?”

“No…” she said. “ You know. We were just discussing a child I was concerned about.”

Natalie made a snorting noise. Kate glared at her, and Natalie put on an exaggerated “Oh-excuse- me ” expression. So transparent, Natalie was. Everybody knew she had a huge crush on Adam.

Last week, it was all over the school that Adam had given Sophia Watson one of his handmade dream catchers. “Oho!” everyone said. But Kate thought he might just have done that because Sophia was his co-assistant in Room 2.